It is to be borne in mind in this connection that the great English public schools are a national cult. That is, everybody above a certain class sends his sons to one of them. On the other hand, the private boarding-schools on this side of the water, fashioned after them, have thus far attracted the patronage of a very small element of the population. It is their misfortune, rather than their fault, that they are chiefly the resort of the sons of rich or fashionable people, and consequently are the most conspicuously class schools in the country. Doubtless the earnest men who conduct most of them regret that this is so, but it is one of the factors of the case which the American parent with sons must face at present. It may be that this is to be the type of school which is to become predominant here, and that, as in England, the nation will recognize it as a national force, even though here, as there, only the sons of the upper classes enjoy its advantages. That will depend partly on the extent to which we shall decide, as a society, to promote further class education. At present these schools are essentially private institutions. They are small; they do not, like our American colleges, offer scholarships, and thus invite the attendance of ambitious students without means. Moreover, they are almost universally conducted on a sectarian basis, or with a sectarian leaning, which is apt to proselytize, at least indirectly.
While those in charge of them indisputably strive to inculcate every virtue, the well-to-do American father must remember that his sons will associate intimately there with many boys whose parents belong to that frivolous class which is to-day chiefly absorbed in beautiful establishments, elaborate cookery, and the wholly material vanities of life, and are out of sympathy with, or are indifferent to, the earnest temper and views of that already large and intelligent portion of the community, which views with horror the development among us of an aristocracy of wealth, which apes and is striving to outdo the heartless inanities of the Old World. He must remember that a taste for luxury and sensuous, material aims, even though they be held in check by youthful devotion to the rites of the church, will prove no less disastrous, in the long run, to manhood and patriotism, than the lack of fresh air or a famous foot-ball field.